Grandma: 'I prayed for Obama to convert to Islam'

[Confederate Kahanist]

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=233049

By Aaron Klein
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

U.S. President Barack Obama pardons Apple, the National Thanksgiving Turkey, on Thanksgiving eve in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on November 24, 2010. UPI/Roger L. Wollenberg Photo via Newscom

JERUSALEM – President Obama's Muslim grandmother has said she prayed in Mecca for the U.S. leader to convert to Islam.

Sarah Omar, 88, who was on a hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, told the Al-Qatan Saudi daily in an interview: "I prayed for my grandson Barack to convert to Islam."

The paper said that Omar was in Saudi Arabia on the Hajj pilgrimage along with her son, Obama's uncle, Saeed Hussein Obama, and four of her grandchildren.

Omar said she would not discuss U.S. politics, but she did comment on her expectations Obama would win a second term in office. "Allah alone knows, it is a matter of the unknown future," she told Al-Qatan.

Obama was 'quite religious in Islam'

Obama has repeatedly stated he is a Christian.

The president's closest association with Christianity apparently comes from his nearly 20-year membership at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. The controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright, married Barack and Michelle Obama and baptized their children.

Trinity church is closely linked to the Nation of Islam, whose leader, Louis Farrakhan, has given numerous guest sermons at the church. Wright gave Farrakhan the church's "Empowerment" award. Both Obama and Farrakhan were featured on the cover of Wright's monthly Trumpet magazine.

Wright is infamous for his sermons denouncing patriotism, whites and Jews.

Obama's paternal side of the family, including his father, half-brothers and grandmother, are Muslims.

Obama's faith was a central part of his 2008 presidential campaign. His campaign website contained the statement, "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim, and is a committed Christian."

But as WND reported public records in Indonesia listed Obama as a Muslim during his early years, and a number of childhood friends claimed to media that Obama was once a mosque-attending Muslim.

Obama's 2008 campaign wavered several times in response to reporters' queries regarding the senator's childhood faith.

Commenting on a Los Angeles Times report quoting a childhood friend stating Obama prayed in a mosque, Obama's campaign released a statement explaining the senator "has never been a practicing Muslim."

Widely distributed reports have noted that in January 1968 Obama was registered as a Muslim at Jakarta's Roman Catholic Fransiskus Assisi Primary School under the name Barry Soetoro. He was listed as an Indonesian citizen whose stepfather, identified on school documents as "L Soetoro Ma," worked for the topography department of the Indonesian Army.

Catholic schools in Indonesia routinely accept non-Catholic students but exempt them from studying religion.

After attending the Assisi Primary School, Obama was enrolled "also as a Muslim, according to documents" in the Besuki Primary School, a public school in Jakarta.

Laotze blog, run by an American expatriate in Southeast Asia who visited the Besuki school, noted, "All Indonesian students are required to study religion at school, and a young 'Barry Soetoro,' being a Muslim, would have been required to study Islam daily in school. He would have been taught to read and write Arabic, to recite his prayers properly, to read and recite from the Quran and to study the laws of Islam."

Indeed, in Obama's autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," he acknowledged studying the Quran and describes the public school as "a Muslim school."

"In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Quranic studies," wrote Obama.

The Indonesian media have been flooded with accounts of Obama's childhood Islamic studies, some describing him as a religious Muslim.

Speaking to the country's Kaltim Post, Tine Hahiyary, who was principal of Obama's school while he was enrolled there, said she recalls he studied the Quran in Arabic.

"At that time, I was not Barry's teacher, but he is still in my memory," claimed Tine, who is 80 years old.

The Kaltim Post said Obama's teacher, named Hendri, had died.

"I remember that he studied mengaji (recitation of the Quran)," Tine said, according to an English translation by Loatze.

Mengaji, or the act of reading the Quran with its correct Arabic punctuation, is usually taught to more religious pupils and is not known as a secular study.

Also, Loatze documented the Indonesian daily Banjarmasin Post interviewed Rony Amir, an Obama classmate and Muslim, who described Obama as "previously quite religious in Islam."

"We previously often asked him to the prayer room close to the house," Amir said. "If he was wearing a sarong (waist fabric worn for religious or casual occasions) he looked funny."

The Los Angeles Times, which sent a reporter to Jakarta, quoted Zulfin Adi, who identified himself as among Obama's closest childhood friends, stating the presidential candidate prayed in a mosque, something Obama's campaign claimed he never did.

"We prayed, but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque," said Adi. "But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played."

Friday prayers

Obama's official presidential campaign site contained a page titled "Obama has never been a Muslim, and is a committed Christian." The page stated, "Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ."

But the campaign changed its tune when it issued a "practicing Muslim" clarification to the Los Angeles Times.

An article in March by the Chicago Tribune apparently disputed Adi's statements to the L.A. paper. The Tribune caught up with Obama's declared childhood friend, who now describes himself as only knowing Obama for a few months in 1970 when his family moved to the neighborhood. Adi said he was unsure about his recollections of Obama.

But the Tribune found Obama did attend mosque.

"Interviews with dozens of former classmates, teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia," states the Tribune article.

It quotes Obama's former neighbors and third-grade teacher recalling how the young Obama "occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers."

Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, notes the Tribune article "cited by liberal blogs as refuting claims Obama is Muslim" actually implies Obama was an irregularly practicing Muslim and twice confirms Obama attended mosque services.

In an interview with the New York Times, Obama described the Muslim call to prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset."

The Times' Nicholos Kristof wrote Obama recited, "with a first-class [Arabic] accent," the opening lines of the Muslim call to prayer.

The first few lines of the call to prayer state:

    Allah is Supreme!
    Allah is Supreme!
    Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
    I witness that there is no god but Allah
    I witness that there is no god but Allah
    I witness that Muhammad is his prophet ...

Some attention also has been paid to Obama's paternal side of the family, including his father and his brother, Roy.

Writing in a chapter of his book describing his 1992 wedding, Obama stated: "The person who made me proudest of all was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol."